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Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: Madej on January 17, 2013, 05:13 am

Title: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: Madej on January 17, 2013, 05:13 am
There is an inherently obfuscating notion of ‘objectivity’ being employed when certain theists employ the moral argument for the existence of God. And I believe that the distinction between moral ontology and moral epistemology is consistently muddled in such discussions. For the most part, both sides of the debate know that other can see that it is obvious that any such x or y moral fact is true. What they disagree about is the exact nature of moral properties, or, what moral propositions are ‘true’ in referent to – and how so. It seems that most theists who employ this argument hold to a synthetic divine command theory, that is, that the wrong-making properties of certain actions or morally relevant consequential effects therein inhere in the commands of God – or more precisely, that the underlying nature of moral facts can be revealed to be God’s commandments. I think that this is an important thing to distinguish, because, in much of typical internet moral discourse, no analytic/synthetic distinction is utilized – so people tend to employ phrases like ‘defining x as good’ as if it synonymous with saying that, by its nature, x is good; or, in further events, that x is the criterion of the Good. It is rare for anyone to hold to an analytic divine command theory, that “God = Good” (as some tautological or basic logical truth). So while a lot of atheists respond to the argument by confusing its terms and believing that it is saying that we either don’t believe or don’t have epistemological access to moral facts, I think that theists are equally guilty of confusing the epistemological objectivity and the alleged ontological objectivity of their ethics. At the most, you can say that believing in a certain monotheism gives you an epistemological-ly objective access to moral facts – maybe God just tells you about them, or he instills certain reliable intuitions, or you can just read off scripture. What you can not say is that God gives an ontologically objective grounding for such moral facts. A divinist meta-ethics is a subset of ethical subjectivism – inescapably. That is, if you say that moral facts obtain in virtue of the psychological relations of God, then you are, without a doubt, committed to some form of moral subjectivsm. What is troubling (for the theist) about this clarification is that it completely destroys any force behind the moral argument, it inherently relies on and grants our rational insight into the reality moral facts to establish its premises – so it is already granting epistemological objectivity to the secularist because, all things being equal, we certainly must have this conceptual scheme if the argument is to avoid question-begging. So, from the point of view of the argument, both our moral epistemology and our moral ontology remains fundamentally the same (in their terms at least) regardless of its conclusions or its premise-driven nuances. And of course, any theistic revision of meta-ethics is fixed by its referent, that is, God, and so is likely to be some form of moral subjectivism (in virtue of making the facts of the matter pertain to God’s character in some way).

(Part 1)
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: dreams189 on January 17, 2013, 05:13 am
This is so deep!
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: Madej on January 17, 2013, 05:15 am
All of this confusion is further enabled by the failure to distinguish between universal/relative and objective/subjective. A theist can have a universalist, subjectivist morality – and it is true that, for the most part, the ‘universalist’ part is the driving concern behind their arguments; but they certainly do not have an objective morality, not as some literal meta-ethical description anyway. It seems to be assumed that if you can point to some centralized monad for moral judgement, then you therefore have some ‘objective morality’ – and thus we are saved from the horrors of a view that moral facts all just pertain to individual judgement, as if there are no feasible secular alternatives. This is certainly a mistake; and I can see no relevant difference between them insofar as how moral facts should be weighed in both views. If we can agree that a meta-ethics that says moral propositions are true in virtue of the judgements of a hypothetical ideal observer who is perfectly rational and neutral to the situation, with access to an especially wide array of the relevant external facts, that we agree that this is a subjectivist theory, then I fail to see what makes a God-grounded morality objective in contrast. And what is worse is that the theist (a type who accepts the argument) has undermined any meaningful sense of moral motivation – they are still committed to saying that our motivations ‘to do what is right’ is entirely driven by our partiality (i.e. I fear God’s punishment, wrath, or disapproval); there is no sense that they can say it is inherently contained in the normative fact that it is, in an epistemological/non-instrumental sense, irrational to violate its prescriptive conditions. To me, as a secular moral platonist, to commit an immoral action is fundamentally the same as committing any error in reasoning – it’s like contradicting yourself. However, a theist meta-ethics just does not ground morality in reason in this way; and as such, some impartial and absolute framework for moral motivation seems entirely unaccessible to them. I find this interesting considering that what motivation there is to be moral between the contrasting views is a driving force between contenders of the theistic position.
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: jameslondon on January 17, 2013, 10:26 pm
.
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: TinyDot on January 17, 2013, 10:28 pm
dem wurdz done did makez my brain hurt :P
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: parcificseeds on January 18, 2013, 12:00 am
randommmthen I fail to see what makes a God-grounded morality objective in contrast. And what is worse is that the theist (a type who accepts the argument) has undermined any meaningful sense of moral motivation – they are still committed to saying that our motivations ‘to do what is right’ is entirely driven by our partiality (i.e. I fear God’s punishment, wrath, or disapproval); there is no sense that they can say it is inherently contained in the normative fact that it is, in an epistemological/non-instrumental sense, irrational to violate its prescriptive conditions. To me, as a secular moral platonist, to commit an immoral action is fundamentally the same as committing any error in reasoning – it’s like contradicting yourself.
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: koanresponse on January 18, 2013, 05:18 am
Philosophy is best digested in paragraph form, ouch wall o text
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: stonesupply on February 04, 2013, 01:53 am
sorry guys. bump for spam
Title: Re: Apologetic subterfuge
Post by: nickthird on February 04, 2013, 02:00 am
too much terminology and too little sense.